


The Sandburg Cabin

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26835484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Jim finds a ruined cabin in Cascade Forest and decides he wants to buy it. He discovers that the owner is called Naomi Sandburg and tracks down her son Blair at Rainier...
Relationships: Jim Ellison & Blair Sandburg
Comments: 11
Kudos: 31





	The Sandburg Cabin

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of this was written for the Sentinel chat concrit prompt 'isolation'

The Sandburg Cabin

by Bluewolf

It had clearly once been someone's home - many, many years previously. But its owner had died - or moved to a more urban area - or maybe both, if the person who lived there had died and his heirs didn't want to live in such a remote area, or even keep it as a holiday 'home' - and the cabin had fallen into disrepair.

Jim looked thoughtfully at it, wondering if it might be possible to discover who - technically - it belonged to, and offer to buy it - and the ground it stood on - for a few hundred dollars. Maybe... oh, one to two thousand?

Though the probability was that nobody knew who it had belonged to, and he would be wasting his time trying to find an owner; that if he chose to take possession of it, nobody would care. But his law-abiding mind said he should at least try to find who that little bit of ground belonged to.

***

It actually proved easier to find an owner than he had expected.

There was a small town several miles down the road that led to 'civilization' - it consisted of a dozen or so houses and a small store with two fuel pumps in its forecourt - one for gas and one for diesel. He took advantage of that and filled his tank; then went into the store. He looked around it, noting that the shelves were well filled with what most people would count as essentials, selected two bars of chocolate and crossed to the counter.

"Passing through?" the elderly woman behind it asked as he paid.

"Just doing a little exploring," Jim said. "I noticed a ruined cabin about ten miles back that way - must have been a great place to live."

"Oh, the Sandburg cabin," she said, and sighed. "It would break old Jacob's heart to see it now. He was sitting in his garden when he died - the last thing he saw had to have been the beginnings of a sunset. His son worked in Rockport, made no great secret of the fact that he hated living so far from what he called civilization; he got home that night just after sundown, and found his father dead. Oh, he called for the doctor, but there was nothing Dr. Newly could do.

"Anyway, after the funeral, Luke emptied the house, locked the door and left.

"Well, Luke's dead too, now. Technically the cabin belongs to his daughter Naomi, and she did come up once to see the place, but by then it was in pretty poor condition. So she just went away again."

"Do you know if there's any way I could track her down? I'd like to buy the place. Yes, it's a ruin, but I think it'd be fairly easy to rebuild it."

She looked at him for a moment, as if assessing him. "I believe Naomi's son Blair works at Rainier, in Cascade - she sounded very proud of him."

"Blair - ?"

"I believe he uses the name Sandburg - whatever his mother's married name was."

"Thank you." Jim grinned. "Hope to see you again." He turned and walked out.

Blair was an unusual name for a man - so with luck he wouldn't have much of a problem finding 'Naomi's son' at Rainier. Whether he called himself 'Sandburg' or something else.

Because he really wanted to buy that abandoned, ruined cabin in the woods to give himself a weekend and vacation home.

***

Some two hours later, back in Cascade, Jim prepared himself a meal, microwaving a bought frozen meal for one. He could cook if he had to, but he didn't enjoy doing it; he objected to having to take longer to prepare a meal than it took to eat it. One reason he usually bought meals he could microwave rather than ones to cook in the oven; microwaving was faster. He did realize that if he did manage to buy that remote cabin he would probably have to cook his own meals while he was there, probably on a coal or log burning stove because he doubted the place had ever had electricity - but he would be happy enough with a few days of canned soup (he could vary the flavor); and cheese or canned cold meat sandwiches would be perfectly acceptable. Heck, he often had those here in Cascade!

He could phone Rainier in the morning - or perhaps while he was out doing a routine check - Simon never bothered querying where his detectives were when they were out, and there were a couple of witnesses to a robbery that he needed to speak to anyway - then actually go to Rainier. Yes - that would be simpler.

He ate, and then settled down to read for an hour or two before going to bed; there was nothing on television that he particularly wanted to see. Not on a Sunday night.

***

Jim woke early on Monday, feeling refreshed and relaxed, and guessed that his weekend road trip was responsible.

He showered, shaved, had breakfast and went in to work. Having reported in, he left again, heading first to see the two witnesses. Both proved quite helpful, and one of the two gave a description of one of the robbers that was more detailed than the other witness had been able to give. He asked Mrs. Swann to go in to Major Crime that afternoon to give the description to one of their artists.

And then, work dealt with, Jim headed to Rainier.

He parked, then crossed to what looked like the main building. He went in and approached the manned desk opposite the door.

The woman manning the desk smiled cheerfully, and waited for him to state his business.

"Hello. I'm not sure how - well, easy this request'll be. I'm looking for someone who might work here; all I know for sure is his first name - luckily it's an unusual one for a man. Blair. The person who told me he was here wasn't sure of his last name, but thought it might be Sandburg."

"Blair Sandburg! He's an anthropology professor in Hargrove Hall. If you go straight across the parking lot here, there's a path that takes you to another parking lot; it serves Hargrove Hall as well as two more halls. Hargrove is the one on the left. They can tell you there if Blair is in today, and where to find him if he is."

"Thank you. Have to admit I thought it would be much harder to find him."

"Ah, well - my nephew is studying anthropology. He was having a little difficulty understanding something, and Blair gave him a few hours of tutoring - helped him see what he'd been misunderstanding; didn't charge for it, either. So I have good reason to know him."

"Sounds like a good guy."

"He is."

Jim nodded his thanks and walked out. He could, he supposed, drive around to the other parking lot, but it would be easy just to walk, and so he did.

He crossed to the desk opposite the door into Hargrove Hall. "Hello. I'm looking for Blair Sandburg."

The girl on the desk glanced over at the wall clock. "He's probably in his office by now - he was giving a lecture until about ten minutes ago. If any of his students wanted something clarified he'll have taken them there." She nodded at a stair leading upwards. "Go up one flight and turn left. Blair's in the fourth door along - his name is written on a card stuck on the door."

"Thanks."

Jim went up the stair and turned left, found the door, and knocked.

"Come in!"

The man sitting at the desk was, Jim assumed, Blair Sandburg - he had to be - but he looked very young to be a professor. And he was like no teacher Jim had ever encountered. He had not quite shoulder length hair, he was wearing an earring, and his clothes were of the kind that said, basically, very cheap charity shop.

Well, he had learned not to take people at face value. "Mr. Sandburg?"

"Yes." There was a slightly wary look in the young man's eyes.

"My name is Ellison."

Ah. The professor seemed to relax very, very slightly, and Jim had the sudden impression of a teacher who had thought he was facing the father of a spoiled student he had disciplined in some way.

"Your mother is called Naomi?"

"Yes." The TA sounded just a touch wary again.

"Actually, she's the person I'm looking for, but the storekeeper in Downes Creek didn't know where she was; but she did tell me about 'Naomi's son Blair', who worked at Rainier. So I wondered - can you put me in touch with your mother?"

"Not easily," Blair said. "The last I heard from her, she was in Nepal - but that was five months ago. She could be in Timbuctoo by now. Why do you want her?"

"I was in Cascade National Forest at the weekend, camping; went for a hike on Saturday and found a ruined cabin. Where it was... it was in a beautiful site. Anyway, on Sunday when I was driving home, I stopped at Downes Creek, about ten miles from the ruin, needing gas, and mentioned the place to the storekeeper. She called it the Sandburg Cabin - it had been home to a Jacob Sandburg; his son Luke wanted to live in a more populated area, so he just locked the door and left it to rot after his father died. When Luke died, his daughter Naomi went to see the place but by then it was a total ruin; so she just turned and drove away again. She must have stopped at Downes Creek on her way back from the cabin and spoken to the storekeeper there, or nobody would have known she'd ever been there.

"Thing is, Mr. Sandburg, I'd like to buy the cabin and the land it's on, for a weekend home. I know the cabin will need to be rebuilt - "

"You know where it is? That... Mr. Ellison, I knew about the cabin but Naomi never told me where it was. Not even a hint about the approximate area. The idea of having a permanent home after Grandpa Luke died is something she's never considered. She's been a wanderer, totally footloose, since then - she was stuck living in Rockport while he was still alive because he didn't keep well and needed care; after he died... she got the old cabin. He left plenty of money to all three of his children as well. But Naomi told me she'd been to see the cabin, and it wasn't worth the bother of selling; but like I said, she didn't tell me where it was.

"Would you... would you tell me how to get there, so that I could go and see where Great-grandpa Jacob lived?"

"How about I take you there next Saturday? Or even Friday, if you have any camping gear?"

"Would you? I'd be so grateful! And yes, I have camping gear - I'm an anthropologist, and sometimes we go on expeditions. When we do it's useful if we have our own gear. So... Friday?"

"When do you finish?"

"On Friday - early afternoon."

"Right - I'll pick you up about five - where do you live?"

"Easiest just to pick me up here," Blair said.

"And what about food?"

"If you're taking me there... I'll get food for us both. Is there anything you absolutely don't like?"

Jim looked at the younger man for a moment, then said, "Nothing too spicy - if I'm having a curry, for example, I prefer korma to the hotter ones."

Blair nodded. "Right!" he said. " I'll stick with simple American and avoid the exotic."

"Right, and thanks. See you on Friday." Jim turned and left, not quite sure why he had offered to take Sandburg to the cabin, but aware of feeling an odd liking for the man... and for someone as - well, basically a loner as he was, that was unusual. He could easily chat with someone, even someone he'd just met, but he didn't go out of his way to socialize with anyone.

***

Jim arrived at Rainier a little before 5:00 on Friday afternoon and promptly headed for Sandburg's office. The younger man had packed fairly lightly, apart from the box that - Jim presumed - held food. Between them they carried everything into the corridor, then Blair locked the door, they picked up the gear again and headed out. Blair paused at the desk to leave the key, then followed Jim, now about ten yards behind him instead of at his side.

They put Blair's gear beside Jim's, got into the truck and Jim headed off.

There was a slightly awkward silence at first, neither man being quite sure of initiating a topic, until Jim said, a little hesitatingly, "Do you know anything about your... great grandfather? Jacob?"

"Not very much," Blair said. "I know he was in his fifties at the beginning of the second world war. He'd been living in France, but in late 1937 he decided he didn't like the way Hitler's policies were going, and decided to emigrate. I believe he did think about Britain, but decided it was too close to Germany, and headed to America." He fell silent for a minute, then sighed. "He lived in Rockport at first, but his wife apparently hated Rockport - I don't know why - so he bought a bit of ground in the Cascades - the area wasn't declared a national park until 1968 - and built a house there. She loved the place but didn't enjoy it for long; she died about a year later.

"But despite that, Jacob decided to stay there. He said it made him feel closer to his dead wife. Luke - their only child - didn't like it. He thought they would be better living in Rockport. But Jacob wouldn't move.

"When Luke married he left his father and went back to Rockport. He and his wife had three children - David, Naomi and Rachel. But Jacob wasn't doing well, and after some discussion with his wife, Luke went back to spending the nights at his father's house. Then when Jacob died, Luke locked the door and went back to Rockport permanently. He never went back."

"He didn't try to sell it?" Jim asked.

"He could have, but according to Naomi... His father had built the house for his mother and although Luke didn't like living in such a remote place, he didn't really want to see anyone else living in it."

"And when he died?"

"He knew that Naomi was like her grandmother; she didn't like Rockport, though she made no complaint about living there when her father developed multiple sclerosis and needed care. My grandmother was too frail to give him that care, so Naomi and my aunt Rachel shared the work, and cared for their mother as well - but she only outlived Luke by about a week.

"Anyway, when he made his will, he left his father's cabin to Naomi.

"She went there to look at it. I don't know if she planned to live in it, at least when she came home from her travels before moving on again, or sell it, but she realized as soon as she saw it that sheer neglect over the previous thirty or so years had left it a ruin. I don't know what her long-term thoughts about it were.

"By then I was sixteen and had gone to Rainier - "

"At sixteen?" Jim sounded somewhat startled.

"For as far back as I can remember, I loved learning. Rachel's son Robert - my cousin - wasn't so keen on learning in general, but he was interested in working with numbers, and joined an accounting firm when he left school. I'm not as interested in numbers, but pretty well anything else... Anyway, I got my Masters in anthropology but then I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. One of my anthropology professors offered me a position as his teaching assistant while I worked for a doctorate, and boy, wasn't it fun to be teaching students older than I was! I mostly taught the 101 classes where the average age was eighteen, and I was twenty by then, but even those classes often had one or two mature students, some even as old as thirty-odd. I got my PhD last year."

They drove through Downes Creek, and seven miles further up the road Jim turned onto the side road he had realized, from checking a large-scale map, led to the cabin.

As the truck bumped up the neglected road, Jim realized that rebuilding the cabin wouldn't be the only thing he would have to do if Sandburg agreed to sell; renovating the track would be an additional cost.

Finally they reached the neglected cabin, and Jim parked where a small section of the ground was a little less overgrown than the rest of the flat land around the cabin; it had probably been a parking area for Jacob Sandburg's vehicle - oh, and Luke's.

Blair jumped out of the truck and looked around. "Wow!" he whispered. "This is... this is beautiful! Why didn't Grandpa Luke like it? Why didn't Naomi want to repair the cabin?"

"Some people don't like solitude," Jim said.

"Having people around all the time is all right," Blair said. "But to dismiss this... " He waved a hand around. "It's easy for me to understand why Grandpa Jacob loved the place, but I just don't understand why Grandpa Luke didn't at least appreciate the scenery; but to dismiss it all the way he did... To choose to live all the time in Rockport, with its ugly buildings... "

He pushed open the door and went into the falling-down cabin. Jim followed him, fascinated by Blair's attitude, but feeling that he now had no chance of buying the place.

"Wow," Blair said again, as he looked around the interior.

Jim agreed. The interior walls were collapsing, but enough remained that it was relatively easy to see, without moving from the doorway, what the inside had been like. At least six rooms, with what were easily identifiable as a kitchen and a bathroom at the back of the house.

"He might not have had electricity," Blair went on, "but Grandpa Jacob certainly had good plumbing!

"Officially, of course, this belongs to my mother - but she's certainly not shown any interest in it. She's more interested in traveling, so I doubt very much she'd care what I did with it... and while she might not want to renovate it, I most certainly do!"

"For yourself?" Jim couldn't keep a slightly wistful note out of his voice.

"I owe you, for bringing me here... I'm thinking... It's big enough to convert into two houses. A - well, a dividing wall from the door - it's nicely central - to the back. Use the front door as an entry for both, with a tiny shared hall, and a door at each side. A hallway down each side of the dividing wall, with doors opening opposite it into a sitting room, a master bedroom and a smaller room that could be either a second bedroom or just a general purpose spare room, ending up at the back of the house with a bathroom and a kitchen - the plumbing obviously comes in there. I'd sell or lease you one of the houses, whichever you prefer, and keep the other. I know we've only just met, but we seem to get on pretty well, so I think it would work - and even if we were both here at the same time, we don't need to see much of each other if we don't want to."

"Sandburg, that's... " Jim struggled to find appropriate words. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "I'd like to buy, but a lease might be the better idea, in case your mother... "

"I doubt she'd bother too much... and if I've paid for the renovations, she's more likely to say that what I decide is fine than step in and insist that it's hers. She's not a person who considers possessions important." He thought for a moment. "I think I know where she might be at the moment - I can try to contact her, see what she thinks. But if I pay for the renovations and alterations to the house - Grandpa Luke left me enough money that I can do that - I'm pretty sure she'll tell me just to go ahead and do what I want with it. And that being so, I'll sell you one of the two houses."

"And in that case - I'll pay for renovating the road to it," Jim said.

***

Blair was right. He managed to contact his mother, who told him that as far as she was concerned the cabin was his (and actually wrote to her father's lawyer to tell him she was transferring ownership of the old cabin and the ground it was on to her son). As soon as he had the clearance to go ahead he employed a builder to rebuild the cabin with the alterations needed to make it into two houses.

Jim, meanwhile, had already had the road to it surfaced, deciding that even if Blair's mother refused permission for Blair to go ahead and make the cabin into two houses, it would at least compensate Blair for his willingness to let Jim live there.

When the work on the houses was finished, Blair contacted Jim, and they went together to see them. The two houses took up a little more space than the original cabin had done, and mirrored each other, with the living room of each facing the view back down the hillside.

"Right," Blair said after they had looked at both houses. "Which one do you want?"

"Toss you for it," Jim said.

Blair grinned. "Okay." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. "Heads you get the one on the right and I get the one on the left, tails I get the one on the right and you get the one on the left." He flipped the coin and it came down heads. "Okay?"

Jim nodded.

Blair grinned, checked the labels on the two keys and handed one to Jim.

Jim hesitated. "I haven't paid you yet. We haven't even agreed on a price."

"I think I can trust you. After all, you're a cop." During their previous encounters Jim had admitted to being a detective with Major Crime. "If I can't trust a cop, who can I trust?"

"You do get dirty cops," Jim admitted.

"Detective, you've already paid for the repairs to the road," Blair said, "with no guarantee that Mom would agree to letting you have part of the building."

Jim just grinned. "So - how much?"

"Half the cost of the whole building - $25,000? That'll include all the land on your side." Blair didn't add that he was subtracting a little for the road renovation.

"Sounds pretty good," Jim agreed. By the time he'd paid that, he wouldn't have much left in his bank account, but there was always the trust fund his father had set up for him when he was born, and which he had never touched. He didn't want to touch it, wanting to prove to his father that he could manage perfectly well without leaning on the Ellison millions, but his police salary was good and he had made a point of putting a little into his savings each month, so in ten days he could begin building those savings again.

And as soon as he got home, he arranged for Blair to get a bank check to pay for the house.

***

It was three weeks before the two men met again. In that time Jim had gone back once, taking some furniture - a bed, a small cupboard, table and four upright chairs (though he thought it unlikely that he would need as many as four chairs), a comfortable easy chair, a couple of rugs, and one or two pots, a kettle and some cutlery, as well as some odd plates and mugs. He had spent a couple of days getting the furniture, such as it was, sorted in living room, bedroom and kitchen. He could take up a few more things on subsequent visits, but the basic necessities were there.

On this second visit, as well as another cupboard, he leaned slightly on cans of food and some packets of dry food he put in a large airtight container, planning on leaving a small supply of food in the kitchen.

When he arrived, there was already a car there - a Volvo that he reckoned had to be at least ten years old - that he assumed belonged to Blair. Well, if they met, they met; if they didn't see each other, well, they didn't see each other. He parked and carried everything into his side of the house, then set about putting everything where he wanted it. Then he ate, and went to bed.

In the morning, when he went out, it was to find Blair sitting where he could enjoy the view, a small folding table beside him and a mug of something - Jim couldn't identify what it was from the smell - sitting on the table.

Blair grinned at him. "Morning, Detective."

"Jim," Jim said, even as he spoke surprising himself. He didn't normally encourage informality - yes, at the PD, his fellow detectives in Major Crime called him 'Jim', but pretty well everyone else called him 'Ellison'.

"And I'm Blair," the other man said, remembering that during their previous meetings Jim had called him 'Sandburg'. "Got your house furnished yet?"

"I've got in some basics," Jim said. "I'll bring one or two more things each time I come up. You?"

"Pretty well everything I need," Blair replied. "You're limited to coming here on weekends, right?"

Jim nodded.

"Whereas my hours are variable, and I've been able to come up on some weekdays." He hesitated for a moment. "Any plans for today?"

"I was thinking of exploring a bit," Jim said. "That was how I found the cabin - I was camped a little west of here, and just walking around. I'm wondering what's north of here."

"Trees?" Blair suggested.

Jim chuckled. "And above them, treeless hillside," he said. "Then beyond that, Canada. But seriously, although I like long-distance hiking, I enjoy exploring an area, getting to know it in detail."

Blair nodded. "I know what you mean," he said. "I've already spent two or three afternoons wandering around the cabin, getting to know the area the way Grandpa Jacob must have known it, though up to now I haven't gone more than maybe a mile from it."

They fell silent, gazing down the hillside. Both men could appreciate what had impelled Jacob Sandburg to build his cabin at this place. Even though there were trees below them, they didn't block the view - the hillside looking that way was fairly steep, although the road going to the cabin - now cabins - was much gentler.

Jim found himself concentrating on something at the bottom of the hill that he could - just - make out, but couldn't see in any detail... and then he became aware of a voice.

"Jim? Jim? What's wrong? Wake up, man!"

He shook his head and blinked at Blair, who was standing blocking his view and shaking his arm. "Oh, God, not again!" he muttered.

"Are you all right?" For such a recent acquaintance, Blair sounded surprisingly worried.

Jim nodded. "Yes... How long...?"

"Just a few minutes, but... You said 'not again'. Does that.. that zone out happen often?"

"Only if I'm really concentrating on something." Jim wasn't sure why he didn't just say 'no'.

"Concentrating... " Blair sounded thoughtful. "So what were you concentrating on? Something you were hearing? There certainly seem to be a lot of birds around."

Jim knew he should say 'yes' but opted for the truth. "I thought I saw something near the foot of the mountain. I was trying to make out exactly what it was."

"Near... You must be very far-sighted."

"Yes - I suppose I am."

"Is it just sight?" Blair sounded really interested. "Can you hear things nobody else seems able to hear?"

Jim sighed. "I have to be careful about that."

Blair chuckled. "Yes, I can see that you couldn't really arrest someone on the grounds of something you heard him say if he was a hundred yards away."

"You... you're very accepting of that."

"There's always a wide range of what people can see and hear. And smell and taste. Jim - is it just sight and hearing? Can you smell things nobody else seems to, taste what herbs the chef has put in a meal?" He looked directly at Jim. "I did notice that your shirt is a very soft cotton - so are you sensitive to touch as well?"

Jim stared at him. "How did you know that?"

"You're going home on Sunday night? If you follow me to my apartment, there's a book I'd like to show you. It was written over a century ago - in around 1870 - the publication date is in Roman numerals and I always have to work it out. I think you'll find it interesting."

***

The two men spent much of the weekend exploring the forest downhill from the building - on his previous visits Blair had mostly explored uphill. Then mid afternoon on Sunday they packed up a little earlier than they normally would, locked up and drove back to Cascade.

Jim followed Blair's elderly Volvo as he drove steadily and just inside the speed limit, noting mentally that the younger man was an excellent driver. Blair led the way to a small apartment block not far from Rainier. There was more than adequate parking space beside the building, and the two parked side by side.

Blair hooked his duffel and a small backpack over one shoulder and led the way up the stairs - the apartment seemed to lack an elevator, though for the two flights involved it didn't seem necessary for there to be one (except for moving furniture in or out). Inside the apartment Blair opened a door, dropped the duffel inside the room, then still carrying his backpack led the way on down a short hallway to what looked like a very comfortable living room. There was a bookcase against one wall, a comfortable-looking upright chair sitting in front of a small desk where there was a laptop; two armchairs sat in front of an electric fire, a small coffee table between them.

Blair dropped the backpack beside the desk and indicated one of the armchairs. "Coffee?" he asked. "I'd offer you a beer but you still have to drive home, and while one beer wouldn't put you over the limit, I'd guess that as a cop you'd probably prefer not to drink and drive at all?"

Jim nodded. "I tend not to drink at all," he said as he sat down. "Although we officially work eight-hour days, even detectives can be called out at any time if there has been a crime - depending on the crime; and criminals tend to operate at the weirdest hours. And I really don’t want to tell my Captain that I don’t want to go out at 2am because I’ve had a couple of beers or a whiskey."

"Thieves breaking in halfway through the night so that they can commit a robbery while the people they're robbing are asleep?"

"Yes. Once it was a kidnapping - a child just a few weeks old. The mother got up during the night to feed junior and found the kid missing. We were called out, of course... Luckily the kidnapper wasn't very clever and had left plenty of clues, and we tracked her down inside a couple of hours."

"Her?" Blair sounded startled.

"Turned out it was a woman who had just lost a child and wanted to - well, replace it. She ended up in Conover for a few months till she came to terms with her child's death. Anyway - yes, I'd be glad of a cup of coffee."

Blair crossed to the bookcase first, took a big book from it and put it on the table beside Jim, then headed out the door. Jim could hear him in a neighboring room putting water into a coffee maker, dismissed the noises and looked at the book.

**The Sentinels of Paraguay.**

He lifted it and began to leaf through the pages. Almost immediately his attention was caught by the page that summarized the contents.

_'In the primitive jungle, where people live in often small villages, many of those villages have a man they call a watchmen or a guardian. These men have a gift; they have senses that are heightened, and their duty to their village is to lead the tribesmen when they hunt to the animals they feed on; to let them know if a chance-found carcass is still fresh or if it has begun to decay; to warn their villages of the approach of a storm. In a more civilized culture they would be called sentinels.'_

It was no wonder, he thought, that Blair had been so accepting of Jim's being what his father had called 'a freak'.

But this explorer lived over a century earlier; and if these sentinels lived in the jungle... how did he, living in the United States of America in the twentieth century, manage to have what the book was describing as 'a gift'?

Blair came back carrying a tray with two mugs of coffee, two spoons and a bowl holding sachets of sugar and creamer.

"Is this... It isn't just fiction?" Jim asked.

"Burton was a respected explorer," Blair said. "I found that book years ago and the concept of heightened senses fascinated me. I wanted to base my PhD dissertation on sentinels, but until now I never found anyone with more than two heightened senses.

"So I found a different subject for my diss, but I've never lost my interest in sentinels. Finding you... "

Jim looked back at the page. "Does it say anything about those times when I concentrate too much on something, and grey out?"

"Yes." Blair hesitated for a moment. "It's sort of like Superman and kryptonite. A disadvantage to counter the gift. Apparently it's quite easy for a sentinel to concentrate too hard on something, usually something he's seeing or hearing, and lose track of what's actually around him. So they usually worked with a friend, whose job it was to keep him grounded. Keep him from concentrating too hard on what he was seeing or hearing. You need to let your partner know about it - "

Jim was already shaking his head. "I work alone," he said. "My last partner disappeared - he was supposed to be delivering a million bucks in ransom money. He was never seen again, nor was the kidnap victim. IA still thinks he did a runner with the cash, but he wouldn't - not when the price was someone's life. Anyway, although I sometimes work with another detective, since then I've refused to accept a permanent partner. My boss understands, though he's not too happy about it."

"Well, you need to let someone know, because if you zone out in the middle of investigating something... "

"Blair - you said that sometimes you have a day off, that you've been up to the cabin mid-week?"

"Yes."

"And you know the problem, and what to do about it."

"Well, yes."

"Is there any way that you could get permission for a ride along with me? Okay, a ride along is only for ninety days, but even that... "

Blair looked thoughtful. "I could say I want to research the work the police do... with a view to writing a paper on it. And if I wrote that paper I'd make sure everyone was anonymous. Yes, it's possible, and give me the chance to come up with a few things that would help you maintain control."

They drank their coffee, then Blair said, "Take the book with you and read it. It might give you some ideas."

"Thank you," Jim said.

***

Jim found the book more than interesting. There was so much in it that felt familiar... He read late into the night, finally - reluctantly - putting it down and going to bed.

He woke a little before 5am with an uneasy feeling. Something felt wrong, though he couldn't begin to think what it was.

Pushing the feeling away, he had a quick cup of coffee and headed for the PD, early though it was. Although he didn't often take advantage of it, flexitime was useful; he could put in his normal eight hours and get home early to carry on reading Blair's book.

He walked into Major Crime, nodding to Carstairs and Pascoe, the two unfortunates currently on night shift, there in case there was a callout during the night. Sometimes there was one, occasionally there was more than one (when an off-duty detective could be contacted) but night shift tended to be a time when the detectives involved went over older cases not quite gone cold, hoping to find something they'd missed. It was coming up to the time that they all hated when a callout meant that the night staff might be stuck on duty for several hours past their normal finishing time. They’d get overtime or time off in lieu, but coming after a night working when all they wanted to do was get home to bed…

The phone rang; Carstairs answered it. "Right - yes, possibly quarter of an hour." He put it down and glanced over at Pascoe. "Explosion in an apartment block," he said.

Jim put down the file he'd been reading, his sense of something wrong suddenly heightened. "I'll take it," he said. "No point in you two going out when I'm on day shift anyway. Where is it?"

The address was close to the university, and Jim stiffened. That sounded like the apartment block where Blair lived! He hurried out, only half aware of Carstairs' "Thank you!" as he went.

He took the stairs rather than wait for the elevator, going in a series of jumps that took him to the garage almost before the elevator would have reached the MC floor, ran over to his truck, scrambled in and headed out.

When he reached the address Carstairs gave him, it was to discover that he was right; it _was_ the block Blair had led him to the previous evening. Parking as close as he could get, he hurried to one of the patrol cops, grateful that at this time in the morning there were few 'looky-loos' taking up space. The onlookers were mostly wearing pajamas, robes or clothes that looked as if they had been dragged on in a hurry. Some of them - mostly the girls - were clutching bags, too big to be purses, and Jim guessed that these held one or two valued possessions they had delayed a minute or two to rescue.

The firemen had the fire under control, but Jim could see that the entire building was gutted.

Reaching the cop, Jim said, "Ellison, Major Crime. We got a call a few minutes ago. What happened?"

"Apparently there was an explosion about two hours ago - and the whole building went up in flames almost immediately. A lot of the residents did get out - " he nodded over to where the pajama and robe wearing onlookers were standing - "but not all of them. We think the ones that didn't get out were probably killed in the explosion."

Jim nodded, knowing that that was probably correct. "Have you got statements from the ones who did get out?"

"Almost identical. Wakened by the bang, smelled the smoke, got the hell out. The ones furthest from the explosion are the ones who delayed for a minute to get sort of dressed or shove one or two things into bags, but most just ran for their lives."

"Do you - I mean you, personally - have names?"

"No." He pointed to a police van just a little closer to the building. "Sargent Brett took the statements, so he'll have the names."

"Thanks."

He had only gone two or three steps, however, when he heard a familiar voice. "Jim!"

He was surprised at the degree of relief he felt when Blair pushed his way over to him. "Blair! Are you all right?"

"Yes." Blair looked over at the destroyed building. "I'm luckier than a lot of the others; most have lost everything. But I've left a lot of what I valued in my office at Rainier to be handy if I needed something to illustrate a lecture. The only thing of value I had at home, really, was Burton's book - and I lent it to you yesterday, so it's safe too. If it had been in my apartment - I doubt I'd have had time to pick it up, and it would have been difficult to replace."

Jim put a hand onto Blair's shoulder. "Just as long as you're all right," he said, suddenly realizing why he had felt uneasy earlier. He was aware of feeling a degree of attachment to Blair that he had never felt for anyone else.

"Why are you here?" Blair asked.

"We got a call about the explosion. It wasn't until I was here that I realized it was where you lived. This isn't the place to ask you questions - Do you have any clothes at Rainier?"

"I've got a pullover and a pair of trousers there - something to change into in case I got soaked going from the parking lot into the building. It has happened," he added ruefully.

Jim nodded sympathetically, remembering one occasion he had been soaked through as he went the short distance from his truck to the door of his building. "Okay, let's go and let you get some clothes on, then we can go to the PD and you can tell me what you know about your neighbors - or perhaps I should say ex-neighbors. I think you'll have to travel with me - I doubt you'll be able to get your car out, at least not while the fire service is here."

Blair glanced over at the parking lot for the block, and said, "I think you're right."

They went first to the police van. "I'm taking Mr. Sandburg to his office where he has some clothes, then he's agreed to come to the PD to tell me what he knows about his neighbors in case one of them turns out to be responsible for the explosion, rather than it just being an accident," Jim said.

Sargent Brett nodded, and they headed off.

***

There wasn't much Blair could say about a lot of the people who had shared his apartment block, except that one, three apartments further along the corridor he'd been on, sometimes seemed to get deliveries of things late into the night, and the occupant, a man Blair knew only as Howard, seemed to work from home during the night hours. Blair wasn't certain, but thought the explosion had been there; he certainly hadn't seen Howard anywhere among the survivors.

Jim, recording Blair's statement, found himself wondering if Howard had been manufacturing bombs or perhaps cooking meth and killed himself while doing so (the first suspicion turned out to be fact). When Blair finished his statement, Jim took the tape to Major Crime and gave it to Rhonda, then went back to the interview room where he had left the young professor.

"Right," he said. "Now I'm taking you back to my apartment, giving you something to eat, and you can decide what you're going to do about accommodation."

He had half expected Blair to protest, but it seemed that Blair was happy to let someone else take over, at least for the moment.

They stopped on the way to buy pizza, and settled down to eat it in Jim's apartment. Conversation was surprisingly easy - of course, after the weekend they had shared at the cabin, they could hardly be called strangers to each other - and as they finished the pizza Jim came to a decision, one based partly on his earlier suggestion of a ride along, and partly on the reference in The Book about a sentinel having a companion.

"Blair," he said. "It's quite small but I have a spare room. You're welcome to use it rather than go to a hotel until you find another apartment."

Blair looked at him and smiled. "Thank you," he said. "A week should be long enough."

***

It was a week that turned into years, their partnership as sentinel and companion quickly establishing itself, and eventually both men retired and moved to the cabin in Cascade Forest (which they had reconverted to one house after a few months, simply by leaving the two doors from the tiny hall unlocked. They mostly used Jim's living room, but the other one was there for any time either man wanted time to himself; and having two shower rooms was useful). Both men settled into a new career writing, Jim writing crime novels and Blair writing novels with a leaning towards exploration. Both sets of books were highly successful.

Eventually Blair decided that he should make a will, and he decided to leave the cabin to a cousin, his mother's great-nephew, who had visited several times and - like Jacob and Blair - loved the place. Not that either Jim or Blair had any plans to die soon. But neither wanted to think of the place falling into disrepair again. It had, after all, brought them together; and it deserved to have many more years of being loved.


End file.
